Newspaper Pots

I also posted this at NotDabblingInNormal–enjoy.

Ever thought about buying one of those wooden round peg “things” that make newspaper pots? Well, except for the fact that they look nice they are totally irrelevant because there are lots and lots of links on line for many different styles of newspaper pots.
Really my issue with the purchased wood pot maker is that it is only one size and often gardeners need multiple sizes for our different potting needs.
So today I am adding some links for different newspaper pots to make. Please hang on to these instructions because you may find yourself using them sooner than you think. Especially if you decide to start asparagus, or some other early plant.
Not only can you use newspapers to make many many recyclable pots of different sizes, but they are easy to find and get for free from friends and neighbors even if you don’t take a subscription.  And if your community like mine does not recycle newspaper, which makes a great place to acquire lots of newspaper, then another really good place to get large reams of it for pots or mulch is your local school. Since we don’t take the paper, nor do any of our neighbors, that is where we have to go when we need large amounts. Since I also use newspaper under my mulches to ultra suppress weeds, I try and start collecting in the late fall/ early winter since the schools are out in the summer and I will then have more trouble finding enough paper for all my needs. Usually at least one of the teachers will use them for the current events so it’s a great place to start with anyways.

So here are some links that will give you a number of different ideas and styles for pots to make.
Since this is an older article from my previous blog some of the links were bad and needed replacing but all seem to be pretty good still.
Here is my favorite style of pot demonstrated by no ordinary homestead along with a video for those of you who enjoy learning that way.  This is a new link for this article but I do so enjoy this more “square” style of news paper pot.

There is also this one without pictorial, just word directions : http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles/polachic49.html
Here is a seed envelope making page which is handy for right now Seed envelopes.
Here is another pot: Newspaper pot 2
Here’s another pot: Newspaper pot 3
And a few more pictures here: Newspaper pot 4

Now I know that you can also use things like toilet paper rolls but I have some problems with those:
1—they aren’t big enough when you need to grow out things like tomato seedlings that need to be potted and repotted.

2–I buy the “triple” roll size rolls. So I would have to save those all year just to get barely enough rolls :-) And when storage is an issue—who wants to. I’d rather just toss them in the compost pile.
3 — For those of you who are paperless, even in the bathroom, that idea leaves you a bit high and dry (sorry…couldn’t help myself ;-)

By the way—I also own a “soil blocker” as seen here: Peaceful Valley farm and garden
I own the smallest and the medium size. I love them for seed starting when I have the room to set up all my seedling “stuff” Sometimes my garage is chock full of too much stuff for me to get everything going. Slowly we are rectifying that problem but sometimes we have large projects going during the winter and our storage space comes at a premium. Seed blocks (with cats, dogs etc are a bit messy for beside your bed)
However I do love to use them to start things like sweet peas or other seeds that don’t “really” need to be sprouted inside but maybe I just want to. The seeds that come fast and quick….so I don’t need to have the block around for long. Eventually I will invest in the big one but since I really only need it for a few plants I just haven’t gotten around to purchasing it. Each year though I get better and better at starting and supplying all my needs for my garden so I do see it in my future. During the interim the newspaper pots take up the slack since I can make them as big as I need them to be.

Guinea Hog Piglets for sale

As of today we have a two week old litter of Guinea Hog Piglets—all registered—that are for sale.
2 out of the 6 are already spoken for but we have 2 males and 2 females left.

If you have been looking for a small farm pig to breed for a steady supply of meat or to help you till your garden and pastures without wreaking the havoc that large hogs can—this is the pig for you.
Easy to feed, easy to care for, and friendly (thus easy to move around simply by calling). Their smaller size makes them a dream to handle. Excellent for grass based farming their pleasant nature and size also makes them easy to pen if you need to —which on occasion does occur for even the most organized farm.

If you are interested in one of these piglets contact us at alandtc (at) catt.com

Generally we ask $300 for each piglet however in these economic times we are open to barter and trade. I am looking for some friesian/lacaune milking sheep ewes (2 to be exact with high percentage milking sheep) but will consider a number of other hings including diesel truck/older truck in good condition/small tractor. I am not interested in any livestock other than the dairy sheep and thank you but we do not need a boat or jet skis either.
Enjoy the pictures.

Muscovy Duck Eggs For Sale

Just a quick post to tell anyone interested in Muscovy duck hatching eggs that we now have them for sale. You can see a few pictures of our birds on the page above titled Muscovy. We have solid brown, solid black and a few pied of each color. Our males are all solid brown or black. Of course we can not guarantee color but I can try and help you out if you prefer to lean one way or the other.

Price for a dozen eggs shipped is $35. They will be well packaged and fresh—laid within the past two days. If you are interested email me at: alandtc ( @) catt.com

We may have ducklings in the near future but I am still working out the humidity issue with my incubator so we still do not have any available. Sorry!

Have a great day all and contact me with any questions.

Check out this old book link

They call it Core Historical Literature of Agriculture. It’s FREE…always a good thing in my opinion.

I think I prefer the search section best. Put in any word or word combo and see what comes up. Very intriguing.

Happy hunting!

Home made refrigerator incubator part 1

So I promised that I would post about our home made incubator. We have not finished it yet…partly because we were/are waiting on a few parts and partly because of time constraints. We have been helping some friends lately plus trying to keep up with spring garden work so it falls to the side a bit.
However, I now have a few pictures and will post them with details as we move along on the project. There will definitely be two parts , maybe three , to this series.

First…we acquired a free refrigerator. It was in good overall condition ie: doors still work, shelves are still in it etc. but it needed a thorough cleaning. It was a tad stinky—if you know what I mean.
Then we removed all of the compressor and cooling apparatus from the back. You can see it in the first picture with the external cooling “wires” that were on the back removed and the compressor (at floor level) being taken out.
Next we needed a way to let fresh air into the unit. There was a spot, taped over by the manufacturer where the ice maker should have gone through the back wall. We poked a hole in that tape and pushed out the foam plug that was keeping it shut. You could drill a hole if that does not exist in your salvaged fridge. You need a small hole to allow fresh air in and it should come into the heating portion of your unit —in this case the freezer section where we will eventually install the lights to heat the air with. While we were taking it apart and removing everything we salvaged the circulation fan that is in the freezer to use to move heated air from the freezer compartment down into the fridge and around the eggs.
Next my husband used a hole saw attachment for his drill. I believe it is the 4″ but it could be the 5″ (we couldn’t remember what size we own since we bought it for light installation in the house originally). He drilled a hole through the back at the highest portion of the freezer compartment and another at the lowest spot he could drill through in the fridge compartment.
We then installed pvc plumbing pipe — 4″—-with street elbows and toilet flanges at both ends to allow air to be drawn and circulated from the very bottom of the fridge back up into the freezer for reheating. You can see the entire length in the picture I took of the back and you can see the toilet flange attachment that we used inside the freezer and fridge part to keep the pipe from pulling back out the hole. Since our hole was a bit large we then used spray in foam (in the red can at the hardware store) to fill and re insulate the area. The foam also helps stabilize the pvc pipe. You could wire it in or attach it in some way to the back of the unit if you want. Ours seems pretty sturdy so we have left it as is. Total for foam and pvc is under $20.
Next, the divider between the fridge and the freezer compartment was removed by my husband. This entailed taking of the doors and working a bit to get it all apart. He then sketched out the idea of the hole he would need for the fan to fit within on the divider. Actually the divider split into three pieces—-one aluminum piece, one lower plastic piece and a sandwich layer of Styrofoam. He taped them all together so the hole would line up correctly upon re installation. To start the hole he used the same hole saw as he did for the pvc installation. Then he used a roto zip (basically a larger dremel tool —you could use a jig saw also) to finesse the hole into the correct shape to screw the fan to. The fan had its own little brackets to use for attaching it. He did end up accidentally getting the hole a tad too big but we will fix that. I will explain how as I move into writing part two and have pictures to show to help explain. You can kind of see in one of the pictures how you can see around the fan and up into the freezer. You can also in the other see me holding the wires of the fan—not yet connected— and see where my husband is bringing in the power. Actually he put the box in there but that is where the original power came in and he stayed with that. Why change when it’s already there right?

We just (yesterday) received our thermostat with remote probe so this is as far as we have come. Hopefully we will work on it this weekend and I will have a more to write about it soon.
It took us a while to decide on the thermostat since we have never done this and were unsure about which one to choose. I finally settled on the DuroStat Electronic Therostat #102720 . Recommended by another person who built a refrigerator incubator. I would link you in to it but I printed it off and I don’t know the exact location to point where it came from. You may stumble on it yourself.
I paid about $60 including the shipping for a new durostat—search a bit and you will find them less than $75 or more plus shipping. It is a bit pricey but in the end it should make a fine incubator thermostat. I still need to get a hygrometer of some sort and a second (albeit cheaper and less technical) thermostat for those “just in case” situations. I think we will buy a wafer thermostat for the back up and a wet bulb thermometer for checking humidity with. Purchasing both of those will add about another $20. We could have gone with just one wafer thermometer (or two…one main and one back up) and it would have been much cheaper. If you decide to try it I would love to hear how it works out for you—so would others I am sure.

So here are the pictures and I will get to part two as soon as I can.

Since wordpress is being difficult for picture placement let me explain: picture one and two show “gut” removal. Picture three and four show the fan from both freezer perspective —with my hand and notice the toilet flange air connect above it—and from below looking up. Picture 5 is the back and shows how the PVC connects the top and bottom for air flow. In picture 5 if you look almost to the right upper corner you can see our fresh air intake hole poked into the square sticker/label.

Food Safety bills need your attention

This comes to me from the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

I have pasted it below so you can read it accurately.

Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund Important Action Alert Flawed Food Safety Bills in Congress

In This Issue Food Safety Bill Overview Take Action Congressional Hearing on NAIS Take Action #2 Quick Links Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund Weston A. Price Foundation Farm and Ranch Freedom Alliance

Many of you have been hearing about HR 875, a food safety bill that has been introduced in Congress.  Although much of what has circulated the internet is not accurate, HR 875 does pose serious problems for sustainable farmers and their consumers. Unfortunately, there are already four other “food safety” bills that also pose serious problems:  HR 814, HR 759, S 425, and S 510.  HR 814 is essentially a mandatory NAIS bill, while the others focus on produce, processed foods and game under FDA jurisdiction. Consumers who buy nutrient-dense foods from local, sustainable farmers can feel secure about the safety of their food.  The same is not true for the majority who buy their food in grocery stores from mass-production industrialized operations.  We understand the pressure that Congress faces to improve the safety of that mainstream system.  But it is critical that the laws not interfere with the right to choose local foods or with our farmers’ ability to raise safer, healthier foods! Small sustainable farms are fundamentally different from factory farms, and should not be regulated the same way!  All of the proposed food safety bills suffer from a “one-size-fits-all” approach.  And even though the bills’ sponsors might intend for them to apply only to food crossing state lines, the federal agencies regularly take a broader view of their jurisdiction.  The FDA’s and USDA’s past actions clearly show that Congress must place strict limitations on these agencies, or they will impose burdensome and unfair regulations and enforcement actions on small farms. We don’t know which of these bills will move forward to committee hearings — or perhaps another bill, not yet filed, will be the one to move forward.  So we encourage everyone to send a clear message: Protect our farms from bad regulation! TAKE ACTION Call your U.S. Representative and Senators.  If you do not know who represents you, you can find out at www.congress.org or by calling the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.  Ask to speak to the staffer who handles food safety issues. Talk with the staffer about why you support local foods.  Tell them you oppose the five bills listed above.  Ask that they support a food safety bill that focuses on the real threats to food safety, such as uninspected imports from China and lax inspections of massive slaughterhouses and other factory processing, and ask that any new laws explicitly exempt small farmers. Explain that this issue cannot be left to the agencies’ discretion, and you want a clear focus on the broken factory farm system and not on small, sustainable farmers. UPDATE – CONGRESSIONAL HEARING ON NAIS Last Wednesday, the U.S. House Subcommittee on Livestock, Dairy and Poultry held a hearing on NAIS.  The questions and comments of several of the Subcommittee members revealed that they view NAIS as a food safety program and critical for animal health in case of a “catastrophic outbreak.”  One member said, in essence, that the costs to farmers financially and in loss of privacy must be weighed against the “cost in human life” if NAIS isn’t implemented. Yet USDA continues to provide absolutely no scientific evidence to support the claim that NAIS will do anything at all to improve animal health or food safety!  What NAIS will do is impose government surveillance and significant expense on animal owners for no real benefit to the public.  The only ones who will benefit from NAIS are the meat packers and exporters, tag manufacturers, database managers and other large corporations. TAKE ACTION #2 You can send written testimony to the Subcommittee before Friday, March 20.  Send your testimony to the Hearing Clerk, Jamie Mitchell, at Jamie.Mitchell@mail.house.gov Put “March 11 Hearing – Animal Identification Programs” in the subject line.  Keep your comments clear, polite, and concise. And be sure to send a copy to your Representative and Senators!  A copy of your letter to the Subcommittee makes a great follow-up to the phone call we suggest above. With Regards, Pete Kennedy, FTCLDF Interim President

Work work work….in my garden

It doesn’t matter that there is just 14 days left until the equinox (March 20th).  I don’t have to look at the calender to tell me it’s soon. No news show or magazine article do I need to tell me that Spring is soon to be here.

I just have to look out my window and the truth tells itself.

Ducks are starting to do their mating dances and fight amongst each other for “top duck”.

Forsythia is blooming and I noticed today that a few peach blossoms are trying to open.

Veggie seeds (and unfortunately weeds) are starting to sprout and some areas of my lawn are getting tall. Tall enough that I may have to mow in the not to distant future.

The sun is warming us up–even on those really cold days. You know how it is: It’s cold out so you put on your jacket but in the car the sun is so hot you feel like you need the a/c on.

This is the busy time of year. Chores long put off during the winter because of cold or rain or in the case of those living in more northern climes….snow.

So every morning I wake with my “to do list”. Some days longer than others.

Yesterday I moved to larger pots 120 tomatoes plants and 30 eggplants. I also started seeds of 2 varities of spinach, 2 kale varieties, chard, dwarf pak choy and some other oriental greens. These will go straight to the garden in a few weeks without transplanting up into larger pots — maybe depending on the weather at that time. I also got my pre sprouted pea seeds into the ground so hopefully I won’t have  a serious killing frost wipe them out and maybe in a month at most I will be snacking on peas. If I do have a bad frost though…I still have some seed left and in about 2 weeks I will pre sprout them and put them into the garden also. Unfortunately I did not get to the 30 or so each of rapini and purple sprouting broccolli that I need to move on to larger pots. Maybe tomorrow I will—I don’t always do everything in the order I should. But the plants are not so large that I am stunting them by leaving them so I can afford to wait a few more days if need be. I do love broccolli and kale  though so I won’t forget to pot on these guys. They’ll be on my mind until I do.  As a matter of fact my mouth practically waters thinking of them.

Today the weather is still nice….cloudy, but warmer in the morning than yesterday so I worked in the barn. Hopefully we will be getting a milk cow soon (we are going to view some more this weekend) and I need to change some of our barn set up. We ran sheep for a number of years and the barn was set up specifically to catch and pen sheep. I don’t need such small enclosures with one or two cows so I have unscrewed it all and moved it out. Some of the wood will go to the chicken pen to improve the fence there or get used for something else.It also still needs the hay left in it from winter cleaned out but I will probably move that this weekend when the teenage “slave labor” is home. As to the cow I mentioned above…we have been looking quite intently for a few weeks now.  Finding a cow for home milking is not an easy thing to do. Often they are too far, too pricey, too thin, too old, too unhealthy, not bred  etc etc.  We don’t mind one not trained to milking since we can train them ourselves but we are hoping not to get one that is “too obnoxious”. We have had a cow before that was not well mannered. Easy to handle on a lead but she would always test us no matter what. Sometimes earning herself a bit of a smack on the nose. Not that I like to smack my animals….but I like less getting stuck with a horn or kick out at. Not that she was super aggressive with the horns but accidents can happen and I wouldn’t want to take the chance. Most cows are not that dominate/skittish acting…but occasionally you will find one that is.

Beyond the barn I also worked out in the garden moving around some flowers and putting up some new structures for my vines to climb on this year. One of my favorite vine “holder uppers” is an old spring from the inside of a mattress I salvaged early last year. After ripping off all the fabric I had a very interesting curly cue frame for vines. At first it looked very stark in my garden since it was all shiny metal and stood out. After a while it started to rust and then was covered was hyacinth bean vine.  I cleaned it up this winter by taking off all the dead vines and now I am going to move it to another part of the garden. Maybe this year I will grow something different on it. I am not sure what but it will not be morning glories — though that is the first thing I think of for it since the mattress spring has such an interesting look and the morning glories would look fabulous on it. Morning glories don’t always fully die here so you take the chance of self starters if we have too mild of a winter. In my garden that could be annoying. Not so bad up near the house—just mow them over but in the veggie patch well….
Now, I have finished eating my lunch so I am going back out to work some more—got to keep plugging along :-)  Hope everyone is enjoying the soon to be spring signs that are popping up and not falling to far behind on their To Do list. Here’s just a bit of mine……

Clean out barn

Clean out chicken pen and add new bedding

pot up broccoli plants and transfer to cold frame

move row of raspberriess

ready new row of asparagus

make new tomato trellises

start flower seeds over the next couple of weeks

trim apple trees and organize trimmings to use on grill.

get sawdust for covering potatoes this year (a new idea I am trying)

and…………………….

Peas

As a child my first exposure to home picked produce was not a tomato or a bean or a melon or any of those fabulous fruits and veggies that come out of the garden. It was the pea. Now….I was not a big pea eater at all. The only way my family ate them was in Chicken a la King or boiled in a pot with some salt. Neither of them are a very appealing pea presentation in my opinion. To this day there is nothing about a boiled up pot of peas—big and round and mushy — that I like.
Yet as a child, standing beside my friend in her grandmother’s garden I learned how to peal open the pod, eat the peas fresh,small and tender and then peel out the “skin” of the shell and crunch on that juicy sweet outer shell afterwards.
Yum. Now that is how a pea should be. Kind of plump and sweet and definitely not overcooked.

As an adult, because I then lived in the south and because I really didn’t care for cooked peas, it took a while for me to try growing my own peas to eat. I considered it a waste of time then. I had to learn to like them in some cooked dishes before I ever considered growing them and even then….it was for only to eat them fresh out of hand like when I was a child.

As I mentioned part of it was because I didn’t like them much but also…in the south (I grew up mostly in Texas though that is not were I live now) why mess with peas if you only eat a few and then only raw? They can and do often go “bad” quickly as the south can have funky weather that shoots up into the too hot for peas range quickly. Some years we’ll get loads of peas….and some years barely any.  Of course it all depends on when you plant and again…..everyone understands those early spring fluctuations. Two years ago my plants were tall and flowering and just about ready to pump out the peas….when a freaky late super cold snap wiped them out.  Since they were already climbing the trellis I could not cover them as I would if they had just sprouted. That was the year we lost all the apple buds too…but that’s a different story.

Since I can say I do like peas fairly well now (small please though—no whoppers for me thanks) I plant them every year.  I also try and do succession sowing so that I can  keep them going as long as possible. I will say I have noticed that some varieties, if still a younger plant, are less likely to get as tough with some warmer weather as their older counterparts.  They won’t produce as long…but it does extend the season slightly. Allowing at least a few more times of munching on those crunchy little gems while I garden.

One of the biggest problems I have here with peas though is that we stay cold…then get hot almost right away. Hot for peas anyway. The colder weather that we still get in late Feb and early March can inhibit my peas from sprouting as quickly as I would like them. Then the first planting ends up sprouting with the second planting, which of course totally defeats the succession idea.So this year I decided to pre sprout the little boogers before hand. Not sure why I never did that before.I will try and remember to post how it works out for me. And since we have been having 20’s during the night and only 40’s during the day….they wouldn’t have sprouted outside this week irregardless. However later this week we will have 40’s in the night and 60’s/70’s during the day they say. Perfect weather for a freshly sprouted pea to grow in. Hopefully we won’t have a major cold snap later this month that can wipe out peas but that is the chance we gardeners take isn’t it?  Always.

This year I am trying Wando from Baker Creek and also Cascadia Snap from Territorial. This is my first time to grow a snap pea and so I am hopeful that it will do well so I can see how well I like it. Of course I hope both will do well as I would like to freeze some of them (no canning because then their just mushy –ick), for the few meals I like with peas in them.  Peas….well they are my problem child in my garden. Always. I am hopeful that maybe the pre sprouting will help me defeat my hot/cold/hot/cold problem a bit and to be able to harvest a few more pounds out of them. No other early spring veggy gives me as much trouble as peas do in my garden.

Raccoons and chickens

Well….I feel bad because we killed a raccoon this morning. However, he/she (I haven’t checked yet) has made a trip to our property quite consistently and last night finally finished off all but one of our hens. Darn it!! At this point you may be thinking that we weren’t shutting up our chickens. But we did after the initial attack when we lost one. I wouldn’t shoot an animal if I was stupid enough to not shut them up. However…having a faulty closing system (which we figured out this morning) didn’t help the situation. Obviously it didn’t shut well enough to not allow the “smarter than your average chicken predator” to make it in. Now that we know this…we will repair it promptly.
Unfortunately for the coon it got itself accidentally trapped this time. Though the door was faulty and allowed entrance…it didn’t allow exiting. Except for two ladies that somehow made it out—one being alive still and one not. So the culprit was there this morning waiting for the death knell. And it did ring.
Now I hate (emphasize that word please) killing animals doing their animal thing. I always feel we humans are the interlopers to a certain extent. But many dead hens later….barely eaten, mostly just malled and killed….is enough. As they say “Enough is ENOUGH!”
And to make matters even more complicated we were just about to go to the neighbor and tell them their dog was killing our chickens because some of it occurred NOT at night as you would expect with a raccoon but must have been very early when the hens were first out or right before going up at night. No one likes to accuse the neighbors dog—but it is a very good reason to keep them up. Just in case you know?

Beyond this shear waste of the chickens, who are currently being savored by our pigs, this is a teaching lesson for sure (In our case it’s about how to build a better “easy to open” locking system).
I think this is one of the hardest things about raising animals for new “farmers”. The losses that incur. Especially the wasteful losses. Unfortunately as my family well knows this does happen. Chickens, calves, lambs and sheep…goats. You name it. Through accidents, diseases or predation sometimes we lose them. I have shed many a tear over my own and had many a new farmer friend “cry” on my shoulder about their loss—and well I can empathize. It’s an especially big bummer when I feel I could have done something to avoid the situation but it is if nothing else a learning opportunity.
Believe me if you raise your animals long enough you learn to accept it to a certain extent. Like we did with the chickens: we fed them to our pigs. Waste not want not right? If I didn’t have pigs I would have buried them at the bottom of my compost or in a somewhat shallow hole right in my garden so that they would enrich the soil.

And though long time farmers can seem callous at times I think that most farms have more respect for animal life than many people give them credit for. Or even sometimes have themselves. We have to go out and look amongst the animals and decide which one will be dinner—for us or others that don’t farm. Since I am the one that picks the culls on my farm I try and put considerable thought into it. Why? because I truly LIKE each and everyone of my animals and I realize death is a very permanent thing. Death is not something that someone else does. I don’t get shielded from it like when I purchase meat from the grocery store or my local farm or butcher.
And even though many people can’t raise the animals they eat (maybe a good reason for all of us to eat less of them) am not disparaging them for not seeing death….I’m just pointing out that farmers cry too.

So now…our one lone hen is well…alone. I will have to hunt up some friends for her to keep her company until my new order of chicks comes in this late spring. Poor girl.

Not quite the milk I thought it was…

So…
We bought raw milk from a somewhat local dairy this past weekend. We were as you can imagine happily elated that we had found a dairy that was local, that sold organic, grassfed cows milk AND top it off was RAW. How lucky!
I have to admit though…I am not 100% satisfied.
Now…please don’t feel I am bashing raw milk because I am absolutely not. I strongly believe in raw milk…or even local organic but homogenized/pasteurized milk if it were available.
However it’s the dairy I am a bit unsatisfied with — and more unfortunately also the product that I purchased.

Almost 4 weeks ago I placed my order on line…which this dairy does do….and told them which place I wanted to pick up at during their drop off time. But, I never heard back. I did email once to see if they would confirm but they didn’t email me. No big deal though I thought…that is just how they do it. Almost exactly two weeks later they sent me an email saying they got my order but that I needed to contact them to give them a credit card number before the day of drop off or else they wouldn’t bring my order.
Fine…so I called and left a message that I had called and needed to give them my card number. No response.
So…I called again. No reply. One more time…no reply. So I left it at that hoping I would get my order but if I didn’t well….it would have been a “sign” or something like that.
Not long after this a friend, hearing me talk of actually getting an email confirmation, also decided he too wanted 10 gallons of milk. He had commented that he tried to contact them once. I said they are extremely difficult to get a hold of and that he would just have to call again. So….he took me at my word and did just that. He called and called and called…..numerous times a day for days until they finally called him back. They probably figured they needed to get him to quit harassing them :-) They took all his information, order and credit card number in one call.

Finally….4 days before the drop off day…. I got a message one afternoon from this dairy/farm that said they needed to set up a customer account for me and would I contact them please. Well, I just happened to get the message only 5 minutes after they left it and so (luckily) I actually got a hold of a speaking person. More specifically the wife part of the farm owners. She took my name/address etc etc and then also my credit card number. I asked her then to confirm that she had gotten my order for 10 gallons of raw whole milk — just to make sure. She replied she didn’t know…..ummmmm…. probably. I asked if she could check and she said she would. Of course she never called me back. I figured at this point though that she would make sure it was there.

Come this past Saturday we went to the drop off and lo and behold…yes, there were 10 gallons of raw whole milk there for us. Whoopee!
We eagerly took them home and put them in the fridge (with a couple on the counter that we were going to use that day to make some things with) to wait for the creme to rise. Yum! With thoughts in my head of fresh marscapone and homemade butter dancing in our heads we ran some errands while we waited. Coming back we noticed that well…..there was no creme line. Ummmm….something was up. We played in it a bit…tasting it….looking at it….but no creme every made itself visible.
Unfortunately….to this day….no creme has EVER risen on our milk. Not one gallon of milk has ever had so much as one drop of floating creme. Hmmmm……. does make you wonder doesn’t it?
Now I know what creme looks and tastes like while floating on top of milk and I have to admit…..I am a bit disappointed about this. O.k…..more than a bit disappointed about this. Why? Well, not just because there was no creme….but now I wonder if it really is RAW milk. I mean I DO understand issues like almost freezing to help the farmer hold the milk while they put together orders or mixing so that one person doesn’t get all creme and another none but…..by now we should have had SOME creme rise. But no…none, nada, zilch, nothing —not one smidget of any creme type substance.
Now don’t get me wrong….I did not get skim milk at all. That I do know. My friend got a few gallons of skim milk and you can definitely tell the difference. But again….where is the creme? I should have SOME in a raw product.

I did some research to see if maybe the partial freezing “damages” the ability for the creme to rise etc etc but it doesn’t seem to be the case. It should rise I finally did find out after looking and searching for days for the answer. So, because of this, I decided that I was not going to spend my hard earned money to purchase from them again because truthfully…not to be difficult (having raised animals myself I know that this is not an easy job at all)….I don’t feel that I got either good customer service nor the product that I was promised: Raw, unpasteurized, unhomogenized WHOLE milk.
Our friend, lovely farmers advocate that he is, said we should give them a break. His thought was that if we don’t purchase from them well…..they will go out of business. Yes, they may. Maybe they won’t though. However, I don’t think that supporting a BAD farm is a good thing either. Even if they are supposedly grass fed/organic. If they don’t deliver what they promise well that just gives the commercial aspect of farming a slightly better name than it should have because it will be compared to a “bad” non commercial farm. You know that statistically anyway…that is what would happen.

I am a strong strong proponent of local food production—-local, organic, grass fed if possible—which is why I grow my own and blog to encourage others to go organic and grow their own. However I don’t believe that by the very nature of being local (or saying we are organic or sustainable or humane or whatever) that we automatically deserve the local food dollars. There is more to it than just that. The point of being locally grown isn’t just to give charity to a farmer….it is to get the best food at its peak quality. Also…it is not ever to pay the higher price for strawberries but get apples instead. Ever.

So…unfortunately I had a bad experience with one local grower. Hopefully, there are others out there doing a much better job. I am sure, actually I know, there are. I will keep advocating for raw milk —-and better yet— raw milk locally grown. Until I find another dairy though….I am a chain store milk buyer. Bummer.
Actually since we have the pasture I believe a milk cow is in our future. If we do decide to buy one I will try and post the pros and cons of finding one.

P.S…..we didn’t get to work on our old fridge incubator this weekend. We have to mail order a few parts. So..hang on..it’s coming.